Military fortresses and colonisation in Jaffna choke Tamils, threaten India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 November 2010, 10:26 GMT]The selection of locations for building new military fortresses and for colonising Sinhalese in the Jaffna peninsula is sinisterly schemed by colonial Sri Lanka to permanently squeeze the Tamil heartland. Casual visitors don’t perceive it. Tamils of collaborative politics helplessly defend it. Indian policy planners of habitual bungling compare it with what they do in Kashmir, tribal belt and northeast India and agree with it. They think that if the nation of Eezham Tamils is permanently erased and if they get one or two harbours there that is enough for the security of India. The military cum colonisation complexes come up with the full blessings of India and with Chinese material help. But eventually they are going to be trained on India, said an academic in Jaffna, citing the complexes that squeeze the peninsula at strategic locations.

Sri Lanka military establishments at Ariyaalai East (Ma’niyam Thoaddam), Vettilaikkea’ni in Vadamaraadchi East, Elephant Pass, Poonakari, islands Delft, Kaarainakar, Pungkudutheevu and Ma’ndaitheevu off the peninsula, and the large High Security Zone along the northern coast, surround the peninsula and squeezes it at its neck.

The Sinhala colonisation programme in Ariyaalai East and Naavatkuzhi, Sinhala fishermen colonies brought into Vettilaikkea’ni and the proposed activities declared by Namal Rajapaksa, Douglus Devananda and a Hindi actor in Ma’n’niththalai, the sandbar opposite to the peninsula will choke the Eezham Tamil demography of the peninsula.

The Jaffna Tamils may not be able move to anywhere out towards the main island or within the sectors of the peninsula or elsewhere through the sea, without passing through the military-Sinhala settlement complexes.

This is an arrangement for a permanent open prison.

This is done in a highly sophisticated way that an ordinary visitor to Jaffna without geographical perception cannot realise it.

Some gullible diaspora visitors seeing semblances of liveliness in the densely populated areas say life is back to normal.

They come to Jaffna like horses with blinders, commented a senior journalist in Jaffna. Many of them in their lifetime might have not even seen those remote locations chosen by scheming Colombo to choke their heartland permanently, he further said.

Demography is not a permanent affair. Eezham Tamils have run away. Why not the Sinhalese fill in the vacuum? Tamils are living in the south, then why not the Sinhalese in the north? The Jaffna Tamils are selfish. They don’t think about the Tamils in the rest of the island - these are arguments raised to defend the genocidal agenda of Colombo.

Tamil speaking Muslims and the Tamils living in the south in their heart know well that existence of the homeland of the Tamil speaking nation and its political status in the north and east only would guarantee an existence of self-respect for all of them.

“Linking the Tamil homeland of north and east is not possible now. Tamils there don’t talk about it now”, declares a former deputy director of RAW who was long conning the Tamil militant groups. After a few years such advisers might say that there is no Tamil question in the island since for all practical purposes the demography has changed.

Tamils should go back and develop their land: this free advice is given by many, without taking any effort at all in creating an environment of self-respect and on the contrary doing everything for the permanent servitude of Tamils.

What the policy planners of India hide from their own people is how idiotic the policies they were hatching out of their petty biases.

The demographic manoeuvrings to which they are closing their eyes today and the military-Sinhala colonisation complexes are trained on Tamil Nadu coast close by.

The former RAW deputy director, Dr. Chandrasekaran told in London, citing Mr. Varatharaja Perumal, the Indian installed former chief minister of the now defunct North-East Provincial Council, that when the last Tamil leaves the homeland the Tamil question would cease to exist.

But that will not happen. On the contrary, what will happen is that when ultimately the Sinhalese ditch India in favour of China there won’t be a single Eezham Tamil to defend India. Without any courtesies that India doesn’t deserve, they too will be on the side of the Chinese coming along with the Sinhalese.

Those who doubt should note the reception received by JVP in Jaffna from the desperate, even when the former, a known racist party was only conning the latter.

A couple of days back an Indian sponsored militant group said that India should help to evict the Sinhalese who have come to the North and East after 1948 and demolish the Buddhist temples built there.

Eezham Tamils should never harbour such thoughts. They come only from the 13th Amendment model and are dangerous.

What has to be evicted is genocidal regimes like that of Rajapaksa and what has to be built considering the current realities is two healthy nation states in the island, so that people welcome each other and their cultures without any reservation and eventually may even think of merging within the island or within a larger regional framework for the prosperity of the entire region.

But will India think in those lines?

The High Security Zone of the northern coastal tract, which has evacuated several villages of potential agricultural land and fishing coast, two decades ago. Note the newly laid roads crisscrossing the area signifying new activities. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

An abandoned village and a new military establishment side by side in the High Security Zone of the northern coast. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

The military fortification at Vallan, Pungkudutheevu, that controls sea-routes from Jaffna city towards Mannaar [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

The military fortification at Saamiththoaddamunai, Delft, which is at a commanding location towards Kachchatheevu and Rameswaram. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

The military fortification at Periyathu'rai, Delft, which is at a commanding location towards Kachchatheevu, Rameswaram and Tho'ndi. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

The military fortification at Kunthavadi, Delft, which is at a commanding location towards Mannaar and Rameswaram. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

Ariyaalai East sandbar in the north and Ma'n'niththalai sandbar in the south that make a close link between the peninsula and the main island. Sinhala colonisation is planned at Ariyaalai East where a military establishment exists and communication network is planned at Ma'n'niththalai. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

Namal Rajapaksa, Douglas Devananda and Hindi film actor Vivek Oberoi along with military personnel inaugurate 'communication activities' at the sandbar of Ma'n'niththalai [Photo: TamilNet]

Fort Hammenhiel, a part of the Karainakar naval base, controlling communication of the Jaffna lagoon as well as sea routes towards the other islands off Jaffna and Tamil Nadu. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

A military establishment at Ma'ndaitheevu to check sea routes from Jaffna city towards Palk Bay. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

Another military establishment at Ma'ndaitheevu to check sea routes from Jaffna city towards Palk Bay. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

Tamils are evacuated and Sinhalese brought in to settle at Naavatkuzhi, which is a strategically bridging location between Valikaamam and Thenmaraadchi sectors of the Jaffna peninsula